


Les Vengeurs

by Fabulae



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Female Tony, Gen, Genderswap, Humour, Multi, Sass, Sorry Not Sorry, Soulmate AU, a mary sue where i am steve and tony is my princess in platinum armour, but also really wanted to have tony in very pretty dresses, dismantling the prejudice against heterosexual romance, having some fun with heteronormativity, publishing au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7308010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabulae/pseuds/Fabulae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is the managing editor of Les Vengeurs, a hipster, money losing publishing imprint in London. Nick Fury thinks he will win them a Pulitzer price. Tony thinks he is only wasting her money.<br/>Tony is a genius, philanthropist, egomaniac, mechanical engineer that sometimes has to don pretty dresses to go and instill some financial sense into fancy creative people that think money rains down from the sky.<br/>They both have cryptical marks on their arms. Marks that burn like hell once they shake their hands in polite greeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Les Vengeurs

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes on my decision to write het romance at the end, if anyone is interested :) It is unbetaed, pardon any mistakes. I will be reviewing it again very soon.
> 
> I have been working in publishing for ten years. I thought this was about time I used this very non useful knowledge for a good cause ;)

**Les Vengeurs**

 

The Marks - chapter 1

 

Tony Stark loved her job.

Tony Stark loved her job.

Tony Stark loved her job.

If she kept repeating that mantra to herself, at some point, it may even become true. 

On one side of her very messy desk were a very old, very battered scifi book belonged to her dad, a couple of designs for a new entertainment device and, on the other, a carefully selected outfit; her stylist, Bruce, a quiet genius that had sudden bursts of green anger but would always choose the best possible mix for any occasion had set it up for her; he was also one of the few people that could actually stand her. 

The ensemble of today was of a casual but smart mini dress in crepe de chine, baby blue, with ruffles and a little bow:  [ Gucci ](https://www.net-a-porter.com/gb/en/product/714586/Gucci/ruffled-pleated-silk-crepe-de-chine-mini-dress) . 

Harmless, sensible, pretty, not pretentious but expensive enough that only someone very very affluent would spend that amount of money on a day dress. To accompany it, to give a bit of a boost, red pointed flats by  [ Acquazzurra ](https://www.net-a-porter.com/gb/en/product/714812/Aquazzura/christy-suede-point-toe-flats) , in suede, with some string to elongate her not incredibly long legs. The perfect outfit to go visit the least money making establishment of the gargantuan corporation she owned. Bruce knew his job. Clearly.

That said, Tony’s eyes drifted, ravenously, onto another piece of magnificence splendour, something more in tune with her soul: a Burberry  [ prorsum ](https://www.net-a-porter.com/gb/en/product/705098/Burberry_Prorsum/stitched-wool-and-silk-blend-crepe-dress) dress. Black, high neckline, a stitched-wool and silk blend crepe dress, a military inspired buttons and some contrasting white stitching: it had Tony written all over it. 

“No.”

“Yes.”

“NO.”

“But Bruce.”

“No. Or Pepper will kill me. They were very specific. You can’t scare them”.

“But with those red  [ Choos ](https://www.net-a-porter.com/gb/en/product/705873/Jimmy_Choo/maurice-laser-cut-suede-boots) , Bruce. Imagine that.”

“Put the Gucci on, cute and non threatening, please Tony.”

“But they know me, they’ve seen me.”

Bruce snatched the Burberry and left the room.

“I’m sending Pepper in”.

It was too early to pick a fight with her ex girlfriend, best friend, soul sister and all of that, power madhouse red headed storm Pepper Potts. Nope. Okay. Gucci it was.

Tony took a look at the mirror and complimented herself. She killed it, even in a demure baby blue silk dress. 

She braided her long black hair in two boxer braids and applied a light dusting of podwer foundation, a lip lacquer that she used on both lips and cheeks and she was done. 

Done. 

Bring it on, book publishing, this mechanical engineer doesn’t fear you.

 

Steve Rogers was tired, very tired. In constant fear his god-knows-how perfect eyesight would leave him at any point now, he was hunched a a bunch of scattered papers; crop marks on the four angles, little strings of text with printing details, a text that looked definitely too big for an A4 piece of paper as it was meant to belong to a little “pocket”, a French very elegant, very little, paperback. But Steve, lucky him, got to read it in proof form, because hey: publishing!

The whole world went round the major religious and trade holidays, people that were so fortunate to have found a very non lucrative, eyes threatening, heart attack worth career in publishing, rotated around three major very fixed point in times: the big summer craze, that started mid winter; the big Christmas craze, that started late September; and the book fairs, if you were even more lucky to have ended up in trade: a mid-October trip to Stressland, aka Frankfurt, would be in your schedule since the previous February. 

Steve Rogers had a team of highly specialized books worms to read books for him but the book fairs were a crux he still had to bear himself. 

Natasha had swung by earlier and dropped the manuscript on his desk. From her sharp look one would have thought she was the boss, but no, she was just the most dangerous editor in all of London trade publishing business.

“Scout said it’s a killer”.

Damned, Barton, thought Steve. He always threw books at them last minute and he always went for Nat, the woman could incinerate every agent on the surface of the earth but could never say no to her chummy Clint. 

“Tell Barton I hate him. I am not going to read 150k Liala’d version of the Iliad before Frankfurt, even he should know that.”

“Boss. He’s a specialist at pissing you off, he’s also a specialist at finding cash cows. At least give it a 100 pages”.

She smiled, all poisonous honey and tapped silently away in her pretty Anglomania rubber kitten heels. 

Steve dropped his eyes back onto the already crinkled tea stained pages of the story and went back to reading. He must admit this was good. 

He rolled up his shirt, and rubbed his soulmate mark absentmindedly. It always seemed to itch when his feelings had a surge in activity. Disciplined and organised, he put the thought in the back of his head and picked up from where he had left off. 

 

One of the reasons Tony would have liked to wear the Burberry was because it would have hidden the nonsensical soulmate mark in the middle of her forearm. She sometimes covered it in very expensive, very effective airbrush makeup but on most days she couldn’t be bothered to hide it, if only to remind her unlike some of her friends that spent their lives sappily looking at their soulmate, going on cheesey coupley holidays, raising perfect babies and such, she was a billionaire badass with two PhDs, a wardrobe that would make Vogue’s editor in chief cry in jealousy, and all the time in the world to have splendid dalliances with beautiful women all over the globe. Such a hard life she led. 

“Boss, we are almost there”. 

Well, sometimes it was really a hard life. 

Happy was driving her towards The Land Where Her Money went to waste aka the publishing skyscraper, aka where the hipster creative posh nitwits lived.

Fury, her always very non obliging CFO, and all around mastermind of evil, forced her out of her state of the art mansion-scraper where the R&D department of Stark Industries lived – well, she was the R&D department, to be honest. She was meant to go and visit the bookworms and instill some sort of financial sense into them. Like, it was quite funny, thought Tony, playing up with a schematic for a new roomba combat bot that they’ve asked her to come and do a pep talk on money, she was THE ACES at spending money, but people did not notice as her luck were threefold: 1) she was a genius 2) she was in a business that made money unlike book publishing 3) she was fucking lucky. Also, dad setting her up with a billion dollar company definitely helped things. 

 

Sometimes she felt her people were just there to set her off to do appalling things, such as visiting a company, being the face of SI – not like she didn’t have a fantastically symmetrical, very beautiful face, and could rock a red lip and a gold eyeshadow like few other (thanks, Ma, for those Mediterranea genes). 

But Pepper could be so incredibly convincing sometimes, and also, well, threatening. So, yeah. There she was all cleaned up and beautifully dressed ready to instill some motivation into lazy red pen holders.

They welcomed her with great ceremony, she kept her sunglasses on to hide her bored eyes and look cool. Shield Publishing had been a rather accidental purchase Tony had made ten years earlier, just shy of fifteen and just inherited a shitload of money and companies from her dad, she somehow talked her way to the board into buying a struggling publishing group. They would never know Tony being a massive Harry Potter fangirl only wanted to read the remaining books in the trilogy in advance before her college friends. It went on making a lot of money and singularly sustained most of the publishing business by itself. If only that hipster imprint wouldn't keep spending money in black holes of investments to buy horrendously boring books from Scandinavia that costed in translation as much as they did in advance to their very pretty blonde agents, Shield would be perfectly okay. 

But. But. Shield was now a pet project of Nick Fury, her CFO and if she wanted him to keep managing the SI finances like he did, she needed to keep him happy and this printing paper with ink on it, seemed to make him happy. Lord helped her in understanding that scary man.

 

Steve had spent the night in his office, reading; the manuscript was brilliant, amazing, genius. He had summoned Nat in his office and told her to go for the kill. Acquire or die. She’d said she would storm Thor on them. Their Rights Manager was a unique specimen of viking with the soul of a puppy but seemed to possess some sort of all speak and could convince pretty much everyone their company was worthy of that book. 

“Aye, aye Captain. The deed hath been sealeth”. Thor was leaving his office with a grin on his face and a strawberry babyccino in the other, when Nick strided with confidence in his office and looked around really unimpressed.

“Captain, you remember what day is it today?”

“The day I spent way too much money for a book that will make peanuts?”

“I would cut down on the sass, soldier. And that is everyday in this little literature avenging business of yours. I would like to remind you today is the day the bottomless cash machine that finances this very dubiously efficient imprint is gracing us with her presence. You look like you’ve been through a bad washing machine cycle”.

Nick stopped and scowled at him. Then a voice from behind interrupted the reprimand.

“I think this look suits you, Rogers. You can definitely pull of the scruffy woodcutter look. And with that plaid shirt, what are you from Vermont? Colorado?.

“Brooklyn ma’am”. 

Steve went around the desk and extended his hand. “Captain Steve Rogers, ma’am”.

“Tony Stark, cash machine, billionaire extraordinaire, call me everything but not ma’am”. 

Tony was smiling, Nick was trying to feign surprise and Steve was a little awkward as usual. 

Then Tony dropped her coffee and stifled a moan of pain. 

 

Steve backed down to his desk and cried out reaching his arm to touch the source of the searing pain. 

Tony turned sharply to Nick. “Please, could you get us something to dry the spilled coffee and some bandages, I think I’ve hurt the poor Captain here.”

Nick smelled something was going on there but obliged.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Tony went to the door and locked it. Her pretty blue frilly dress ruined with spots of coffee that burned her skin, but that was not what was causing her a blinding pain. 

The mark on her forearm was boiling, red, blue and white, it was raised like someone was decorating her skin inside out. 

She made for Steve’s arm and rolled out his flannel shirt and a sequence of number, letters and marks in her life she would have never forgotten. 

She had been eight, a incredibly rich little girl that was accompanying her dad on tour of the new Maths campus he had financed. On the board outside a teacher’s office had been a very complicated equation. She had tugged on her dad’s shirt. She wanted to try and solve it. Her dad had shoved her away and told her that was for scholars and intelligent people, men, maybe in ten years she could try it. Tony had insisted and he, not really caring, left her there with Jarvis that was accompanying them. 

Tony had stayed in front of that board eight hours, long into the night. Tony had solved that equation. Her dad didn’t really believe she did it. He also did not want the news out. The young teacher that had put up the equation in the first place, Reed Richards, a genius himself, had found a way to be in contact with Tony, together they’ve become a force in the field of Applied Maths and changed the world many a time. They were still good friends to this day. The day after solving the equation Reed had taken a picture of it, a polaroid, and framed it, it was one of Tony’s most cherished objects and sat in her office remembering her she was brilliant and amazing whatever her father though of her. 

What was now burning in red and gold on Steve Rogers forearm was an exact rendition of that equation, in her writing. 

 

The pain was blinding. It felt like a burning match was carving his skin from the inside out. Tony was holding his arm and looking horrified, her incredibly beautiful face a mask of horror and contorted in pain. He looked at her arm, burning in the colors of the american flag.

It said cap with three small dashes underneath, his nick name. He was american, had been in the army and also was quite anal about proofreading, it made total sense. 

“Fuck!” Tony kept swearing and looking at his arm, now growing more and more angry. 

“You’re a man!”

“Yes?” Steve’s tone was tentative, wouldn’t want to upset her anymore than that. 

“You are a man and you a bookworm!”

She looked at the sky, then huffed and puffed, touched her burning arm and sat down on a chair, sobbing a bit.”

“Where is my hot sexy Nobel winning scientist? Where? Eh, Steve, where?”

“I published a Nobel prize for literature?”, even more tentative now. Like walking on exploding eggshells. 

“Have you, now?” Tony was speechless. 

“I like boobs, Steve. Boobs in pretty dresses and lipstick stains in nsfw places on my body.”

“Me too?”

“You are something else, aren’t you?”

Tony sighed, closed her eyes, crossed her legs and took a deep breath.

“Oka -“

Her resolution was interrupted by a young scrawny boy running into Steve’s office. Steve was smiling at Tony, trying to comfort her. He didn’t particularly like seeing people in pain. 

The scrawny boy looked at Tony, then at Steve. Saw the marks, saw their faces. Then erupted into a cheer. 

“Oh my blueberry muffin”. If his voice could have proceeded exclamation marks there would have been a thousand of them. “Boss!!!  Your soulmate is Steve Rogers? The Captain of Les Vengeurs”.

He made a fainting sound and collapsed on the floor. 

“Steve. Meet Peter, he’s a big fan of yours.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> One of the many reasons I love gay fic so much is because being two men stories are mostly devoid of gender assumptions when it comes to love. It feels like a love story between two humans, not between two organs. I hate the fact when writing of women, some sort of idiotic prejudices always come about, ruins everything. I hate the concept of a strong woman, also hate a man loving a strong woman is made into a hero.  
> I thought to myself, while thinking these very deep thoughts, Steve is such an amazing example of a good man, a man that is a man without being a moron. He is the perfect guinea pig to try and write a het story without gender prejudices.  
> Tony is a flamboyant crazy individual, his sexuality, at least in my opinion, does not influence who he/she is in any way. My other experiment is offering a female Tony that is 100& Tony Stark, 100% badass. With a vagina. 
> 
> My friends were shocked with my decision. I have ever never in my life wrote heterosexual stories. I think I owe my sex something. I thought of making Steve a girl also, but I wanted to play with him being a guy and Tony not liking this at all. We always read AU where one of them is shocked the other is of the same sex. I am having a play at the opposite. 
> 
> We'll see what happens.  
> (Also, all of this started just because I have a fondness for pretty expensive clothes. May have watched The devil wears Prada one time too many. Also, here's a reference to my Tony, if you'd like to have it, if you want to keep your own then don't look! http://www4.pictures.stylebistro.com/gi/Olivia+Munn+Updos+French+Braid+zhuuwHN4oWWl.jpg)


End file.
